Global Vegetarianism as a Goal, Without Discriminating Against Indigenous Populations

Wow, it’s a long title for a late night blog post. But I had an interesting conversation with a friend today, who pushed the point that encouraging vegetarianism as a way of life for everyone was too much.

I understand where he was coming from but fortunately for you he wasn’t able to dilute my belief that everyone should be encouraged to go as veg as they can.

The argument is that indigenous peoples often rear or hunt livestock as a tradition, or in some places as the only means of making a living. I understand both points but they aren’t powerful enough to detract from the overwhelming benefits in terms of environmental, health and resource surplus for the rest of the world.

In light of these benefits, I’m certainly not going to stop encouraging you to go plant-based. I think that until better alternatives are found for these people, they can continue doing as they do.

I don’t buy the ‘tradition’ argument, because I believe in humanity’s ability to learn from and build on the past rather than bind themselves with it. So much apathy is held to with the notion of tradition, and worse.

I’m more sympathetic to the land-limitation argument which is why I’m sure that these people will need some time to find alternatives.

All in all, for the sake of the planet’s biosphere and everyone in it, we need to protect the ecology of the whole planet not the traditions or livelihoods of certain groups. These peoples will be in the same deep $#!^ as us sooner or later, especially seeing the amount of methane currently in the atmosphere and the fact that climate change tipping points are nearing.